Chapter 3

Red welts broke out across Iris's skin, stark against the black web spreading beneath it.

“Is this a blood reaction?” Father demanded, bending over her convulsing body. “Why now?”

Mother's gaze snapped toward me.

The next instant, her palm struck my face hard enough to send me sprawling onto the tiled floor.

“Vera! What did you put in her drink? You know how sensitive her blood is!”

Pain burst through my skull. For a moment, everything swam. My fangs dropped, and the hunger surged up my throat, demanding that I strike back.

I forced it down.

Dax stepped toward me, disbelief hardening into accusation.

“You've been so quiet. So agreeable. And all this time you were planning to hurt Iris?”

He shook his head.

“How did I end up with a sister like you?”

“Enough!” Father's fist slammed into the table. “Get her to the blood physician. Now!”

They blurred past me, Father carrying Iris while Mother and Dax crowded around her, frantic, as if he held the last precious drop of their bloodline in his arms.

Then they were gone.

I was alone on the floor, my cheek throbbing.

“It wasn't me.”

The words sounded thin in the empty room. Almost like a lie.

They hadn't believed me. They never did.

After everything, they still never did.

My palms felt wet and hot. When the maid came back, her eyes widened.

“Lady Vera. Your hands. They're swelling.”

I looked down. Raw red lines ran across my skin. Whatever was in Iris's cleanser was keeping them from healing.

“I'm fine.”

I brushed past her before she could answer.

In my room, I reached for the old leather journal.

The first pages were from the winter the blood shipments nearly stopped. Rogue vampires kept breaching our borders. The House's safe rooms were full.

Someone had to leave.

I volunteered.

At the cliffside outpost, beyond the family's blood-call, I learned to patrol, fight, and hold a position until relief arrived.

My family came for the winter solstice rites. Once a year. Each visit was shorter than the last.

When Ashenveil recovered, I thought there would be room for me again.

They gave me a converted storeroom beside the back entrance.

I'd returned this time for my binding. My leave wasn't over for another week.

I opened my bag.

I began packing my things into a battered canvas duffel.

I'd taken leave from the outpost for my binding. The thought was almost funny now.

I reached for my phone to ask my commander if I could return early.

It rang before I could type.

Kane.

My betrothed.

The man everyone insisted I was meant to spend eternity with. The man who was supposed to stand beside me.

“What did you do to Iris?” he demanded. No greeting. No attempt at concern. “She's in the infirmary. You poisoned her?”

“She had a reaction.”

“Don't lie to me. You've always been jealous. How could you do this to your own family?”

His words burned through the last of my excuses for him.

“I didn't put anything in her drink.”

“Vera—”

“If you've already decided I did, why are you asking me?”

He went silent.

I waited. He didn't ask about the binding. Or whether I was all right.

We'd argued about Iris dozens of times.

He called it concern. I called it flirting. When we went out to eat, he ordered her favorites. When she wanted something, he remembered. What I wanted barely registered.

“She's your sister,” he'd say, as if that made all of it acceptable.

To my family, I was always the one overreacting. The unstable one.

When Iris left for heir training, I'd felt peaceful for the first time in years. Even Vespa had settled.

Now the storm was back.

“If anything else happens to Iris,” Kane said coldly, “there won't be a binding.”

The line went dead.

I could picture him hurrying into her room, brushing the hair from her face. Playing the hero for the girl he'd wanted all along.

My fangs ached.

I let out a short, bitter laugh instead, then called my mentor at the outpost.

Later that night, the front door creaked open.

My parents came in looking exhausted. Dax followed, his head bowed.

My duffel waited by the door.

I was ready to leave.

From the upstairs landing, I heard their voices. Low. Unguarded.

“If only Kane came from a better bloodline,” Mother sighed. “He's so good to Iris.”

“She likes him,” Father said. “If I'd known, I never would have promised him Vera.”

“Still, Vera is the more suitable match for him. Let Iris pursue her future at court. He can keep looking after her even after he binds himself to Vera.”

The words settled inside me, cold and heavy.

They knew.

They knew how Kane felt about Iris. They simply expected me to marry him anyway.

I gripped the banister until the wood pressed into my swollen palms.

Then I went downstairs.

Mother turned at the sound of my footsteps.

“Vera. You're—you haven't left?”

My bag stood beside the front door.

I picked it up.